Diary

My new jewelry should be here any day now. I stretched my cartilage piercings for my industrial from a 16g gradually to a 12g. Last weekend, I finally got the last hole to 12g. It was so painfully infected yesterday, I thought my ear was going to explode. After some sea salt soaks and cleaning the jewelry with Tea Tree Oil (not directly in the hole, just used to clean the gunk off the jewelry), it seems to be doing much better this morning. Slowly but surely I'm stretching the lobes still too.

A common question in philosophical and theosophical circles, when discussing God, is the question of Suffering. The concept of God, in most religions, discusses God with three attributes:

* All-knowing
* All-loving
* All-powerful

Now, when you get to the heart of the discussion, you see that it becomes difficult to discuss all three attributes co-existing in one entity. After pages (if written) or hours (if discussed) of debate, the most reasonable attribute to surrender is "All-Loving." Certainly, if God was All-knowing and All-powerful, he is aware of the suffering of the world and powerful enough to do something about it. Why then is there so much suffering in the world? It would seem that God must be ambivolent to humans and animals alike, to allow such suffering.

But my spiritual experience with body modification and manipulation has taught me differently. When I sit zazen to quiet my mind, the lack of movement causes a straign on my soul. When I take a vow of silence for a day, the silence puts a straign on my mind. And when the needle pierces my flesh, that straign is placed on my body.

If there is one God or one Energy that created us, if that entity has consciousness, and if that entity has human-like attributes, I think it is reasonable that said Entity is All-knowing, All-loving, and All-powerful. That Entity has provided us with suffering as a means of attaining enlightenment.

I am a spiritual person. I am not Religious. I was raised with Shamanic influences. Everything I know about the world religions was done through study and by reading the religious texts related to the respective religion. I have found common threads, and these threads are where I believe the truth lies.

We have been taught to fear our bodies. As children, our parents and teachers would rush to our side when we skinned our knees. We became afraid of the pain and afraid the blood, in part, because we saw those around us afraid. Fear is a learned trait.

How is it that so many of us have overcome this fear?

I thought, at first, that perhaps it was strictly out of spite. "Who are you to tell me that X is true?" We questioned our realties where so many others accepted their pre-programed fate.

But then I wondered, how many got skinned their knees and didn't care? How many spent a considerable amount of their childhood in casts and on crutches? How many of us lived our childhoods without fear, only to become fearless adults?

I used to have a fear of needles. Yes, it's true. I could ski the worst triple-black-diamond course, skateboard down the biggest hill, swing on a rope from the highest platform. But a simple stainless steel needle would bring me to my knees; not physically, but spiritually and mentally. A few piercings cured me of that phobia. I think my needle phobia was about not-knowing. Perhaps not knowing how much it would hurt, or not knowing how much damage it would cause.

Somewhere in the darkness, I heard someone call my name. It wasn't the name my parents gave me when I was born to this place so many call Earth. It was something else, something more meaningful. Something from long ago. I see that "Someone" who calls my name occasionally in my rearview mirror while I drive, or in the middle of the night when I get up and go to the bathroom. Who are you "Someone"? Where do I know you from, and why do I know you so well?

I see the world in shades of gray, but as you peer into my rearview mirror, I see your clothes are red like blood. Your clothes move like water, flowing around the formless rigidity that could only be your etheral body.

Run with me in the fields that are not here, in this place, where I answer to the name that my parents gave me when I was born into this place so many call Earth. Where is that place where we played as children, where you whispered into my ear "you don't belong there, but neither do I"? Where were we when you told me not to worry? Why can't I see you if I turn around and look into my back seat while I drive?

Late at night, when I crawl back into bed after going to the bathroom, I hear you creaping around in the darkness. I hear the liquid red robes brushing against the shoes at the foot of my bed. I hear your soft breathing. I hear the cosmic tear carve its way across your lovely face, and fall with a soft "drip" into the liquid that is your clothes. And then I hear you no more.

While I sleep, I hear a faint drum beating in the distance. It seems like some cosmic heartbeat, each duuuuuummmmm resonating through a collective body shared by us all. Some live with consentual silence, turning their back on the unreal beat. It beats on my flesh, pierces it, and brings my body into the collective. We are modded. We are One.

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